The Death of Duty
by PrincessDaydream77
Summary: After one slight too many from the Lannisters, Dorne broke their allegiance and joined forces with the Northern army, sealing their bond by giving Robb Stark, Cersei's only daughter, Myrcella, in marriage. But as they are thrust together, and as the war brings more threats to their lives with each passing day, will both wolf and lioness find love together, the death of duty?
1. Prisoner in a Gilded Cage

The Death of Duty

Summary: After one slight too many from the Lannisters at King's Landing, Dorne broke their allegiance and joined forces with the Northern army, sealing their bond by giving the King in the North, Robb Stark, Cersei's only daughter, Myrcella, in marriage. But as they are thrust together, and as the war brings more threats to their lives with each day that passes, will both wolf and lioness find love together, the death of duty?

Disclaimer: I do not own the wonderful world of Game of Thrones. I wish I did, but I don't.

Chapter One

The beating sun of the Dornish capital shone down on the whole of the city. However, though the warmth was not overpowering on this particularly day, and had been softened by a breeze that oft occurred at this height, Princess Myrcella found that it offered no comfort to her, not through the bars of her cell.

Though the Martells, the family that ruled over this beautiful city and the country beyond, had professed to King's Landing that she was to be a guest, she resided in the highest room of the Spear Tower. The room was comfortable enough, the view was truly stunning, and she wanted for neither food nor clothing, but the bars covering her window reminded her of just what she was. A prisoner.

She had been sent to Dorne by her mother's youngest brother, Tyrion, as insurance of their allegiance to King Joffrey and the Lannister army, and it was only a day or two of correspondence by raven before she had been spirited away to the very south of the Seven Kingdoms. She had bitten her lip until they had sailed out of sight of the crowd gathered on the beach, knowing that her mother would not want her to cry. The woman's words echoed in her mind even now. _You are a lion, my love, and lions must always be strong._

Tommen had cried. She had seen the tears streaking down his cheeks, even from the distance she was at. She had always been the one to comfort her younger brother when he cried, and it tore at her heartstrings to see him so upset. But, for the first time in her life, she had not gone to him. She had simply turned her head to the side and hoped for good wind so that she would not have to look at him for as long.

She missed her brother dearly. Tommen was certainly the one she missed the most out of her family, followed quickly by her mother and her uncle Tyrion, even though he had been the one to ship her off to Dorne. She could not say that she would miss Joffrey in the least, though. They had always hated each other; he resented that she had taken his mother's attention from him for a time when she was first born, and she hated the way he treated those he considered to be beneath him. '_There could not have been a worse choice for king than Joffrey.'_ she thought, resenting the fact that Joffrey had been born before Tommen. Her younger brother would have been a better king, in her opinion, even now, at the tender age of eight.

Myrcella sank down onto her cot, wishing madly for a book or for a cyvasse board. The only form of entertainment she had been given was two books of religious instruction, _The Seven-Pointed Star _and _The Book of Holy Prayer_, both of which she had read from cover to cover within three days of arriving. Most of all, she wished for a companion to speak to, just for an hour or two, to stop herself from going mad.

On occasion, she had listened to her late father speaking of important executions to take place, often choosing to discuss them at the dinner table. Her mother had always chastised him, professing that such topics were not to be discussed in the presence of young children, but he had never listened. '_Father never listened to Mother, yet she never stopped telling him off. Perhaps she thought that one day she'd get through.'_ Still, the memories remained, as well as the memories of herself as a little girl, wondering why the men and women looked so sad as they made their way up to the Sept of Baelor from the dungeons. Now, she knew exactly how they had felt, waiting for a death they knew was coming, trapped, unable to do anything to stop it.

Suddenly, the sound of voices and approaching footsteps reached her ears. Myrcella leapt to her feet, unsure whether she was fearful or excited at the thought of finally having someone else to talk to, for she doubted that it would be a visit for social purposes.

The key rattled loudly in the lock and the door seemed to roar like a wild beast as it creaked open. '_Perhaps it just seems so loud because I've been in silence for so long.'_ she reasoned. '_Or perhaps it is my mind telling me that something is about to go very wrong.'_

Heels clacked noisily on the stone floor as Arianne Martell entered the room. In spite of herself, Myrcella looked down at the floor, forgetting that she was a royal princess and Arianne only a Dornish one. The older woman had a way of making anyone feel inferior, for she was such a wonderful person that she seemed to glow. If they had sent her as a messenger, then something was truly wrong.

"Princess Arianne." she greeted politely, trying to sound confident, though the shaking of her voice gave her away. "Has something happened?"

"Myrcella." she greeted in return and Myrcella frowned. She was rarely addressed by her given name, especially not by strangers. "I'm afraid I've something to tell you. It may be a pleasant change for you or it may not, but this is how it shall be. And I'm sorry. Truly, I am."

Myrcella frowned, clasping her shaking hands together, and drew in a deep breath, preparing herself for what was to come. Even at her tender age, she had known enough loss to know when she was being sacrificed.

A/N: In this story, Myrcella has been aged up to around the same age as Sansa. This is because of later storylines, which would be inappropriate for a younger girl. Please review!


	2. The Journey to the End

Chapter Two

A/N: Thank you to Frozen862, Guest, Louise, HeartoftheArtsari and yourloved for reviewing the last chapter.

Myrcella had always imagined that, when she stepped outside into the open air for the first time, she would feel elated and free. But she could hardly feel free when she knew that she was merely being transferred from one prison to the next. All the princess could do was hope that her next captors would be a little more lenient. '_With the country the way it is,'_ she thought bitterly. '_I very much doubt it.'_

The Starks' hatred for her mother and her kin was well-known by even the smallfolk now, and so Myrcella surrendered to their bannermen without a fight, fearful that any struggle would result in a beating, or worse. All her life, her mother had told her of the savage Northmen, who killed each other for the slightest insult and mated with wolves in the night; the Seven only knew what they would do to a daughter of one of their greatest enemies, if she did not submit to capture meekly.

As it was, the three young men sent to retrieve the princess seemed kind enough. Although they did not speak with her at all throughout the journey, they left her hands and feet unbound as she rode alongside them. '_They trust that I won't run away.'_ she thought, unable to hide her surprise at this fact. '_Or perhaps they know that I don't have the courage.'_

The journey went on for a long time, though how long Myrcella could not have said. Once they had ridden a fair distance from Sunspear, they found themselves in the midst of the Dornish desert, one of the most notorious places in the known world. Many a man had died of thirst on the golden sands, while many more had simply withered away from the heat. Yet it was not the sands of Dorne that Myrcella feared so much as the snows of the North and the grim-faced Stark king waiting amidst them.

She had first met Robb Stark little over a year ago, when she had ridden with the court to Winterfell, for her father to ask Lord Stark to be his Hand. Now that lord was dead and her father was too, and the boy she had shyly admired at the feast had grown into a man, and had crowned himself king as well.

It was strange how the world could have changed so much in so little time. King Robert had hardly been cold in his grave before the disputes started over who should take his place. Myrcella remembered putting the question to her mother, when Ned Stark had come into the throne room and denounced Joffrey's birthright, stating that the throne instead belonged to her uncle, Stannis. Mother had spoken to her and Tommen at length about it that evening, saying that he was only a jealous foolish man who would do anything to weaken the Lannister claim to the throne, but still it had crossed her mind more than once how swiftly her mother had protested, when she usually dismissed things of this nature quite calmly.

Finally, Myrcella's eye was caught by the beating sunlight, which was reflected off of the calm blue expanse of the sea beyond. This was a far lesser known port than the one at Sunspear, one that was far less likely to be monitored by the crown. '_They won't know that I'm gone until it's too late.'_ the princess thought regretfully, unable to contain the wish that they would run into one of the Lannister ships as they sailed. '_Anything to take me home, back where I belong.'_

The only trouble was... she did not know where that was anymore.

She allowed the thoughts to skip through her mind endlessly, until eventually she was so exhausted that she drifted off to sleep, the gentle lapping of the waves against the hull of the ship a familiar lullaby for a girl who had spent near every day of her life beside the ocean.

When the princess awoke, the boat had ceased its movement. '_Have we stopped for supplies?'_ she wondered. '_Or, Mother have mercy, are there pirates coming? Or my uncle Stannis?'_ There had once been a time when Myrcella had believed, though he cut a frightening figure, her uncle would never do her harm. Those beliefs had died with her father, for now she did not what or who to trust. Any one of them could turn on her, just as the Martells did.

A single glance out of the small window of her cabin gave Myrcella one of her answers. A scant hundred feet away loomed a great stone fortress. It was different to the many Southern palaces and castles the girl had seen on her childhood progresses, seeming to be built largely for purpose rather than appearance; in fact, the place bore resemblance to only one that she had seen before, and the flags flying above it seemed so very familiar...

Myrcella's heart sank as she recognised the grey direwolf, prowling on a field of white, alongside the silver trout of the Tullys. She was finally here. The time had come to face her fate. She could only hope that the boy was as kind to her as he had been at Winterfell. _A crown will change a man, my sweetling, and rarely for the better_. Her mother's words rang through her mind, echoing even as she tried to ignore them.

As the princess clambered into the little boat and began to row ashore, she caught sight of the welcoming party assembled on the banks. The group was hardly aptly named, for Myrcella had hardly seen anything so foreboding in all her years, and the closer they came, the more she recognised, and the faster her heart began to pound.

There were knights, bannermen and soldiers beyond counting, armed and dressed in mail, but they were not the ones who the princess feared. The cause of her anxiety stood before them, a crown of iron set among his auburn curls. Ever from the distance, Myrcella could hear the shout, the shout which eradicated that which had always protected her the most.

"All hail the King in the North!"

A/N: Please review!


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